A Living Magazine - Day 244 - Homecoming - Salisbury to Yadkin

I felt so much better after about twelve hours of sleep. I suspect that I have a very strong immune system. It is either (1) why I don't get sick all the time--despite touching railings, door handles, being in public bathrooms, and sharing the indoor air with thousands of other people, or (2) because I do these things. It is possible that I have received and defeated so many variant forms of bacteria in so many different regions that my body has developed the antidotes for most of them. 

Whatever the reason, food poisoning - for me - is never more than a one day ordeal. This last time was probably one of the more serious. Often it is just a case of diarrhea. Occasionally, it is throwing up once or twice. Once the body purges and gets ahead of the bug, it is a powerful force for defeating it.

I packed up and went to Starbucks. There, I was able to publish three more posts throughout the day. I'd published two the sick day before. That caught me up, since I'd been five posts behind when I'd arrived in Salisbury. Now it was time to get moving toward Lexington. I left at 4:00 p.m., planning to get over the Yadkin River...

A look back toward the part of town where I'd spent two nights.

Cool geometry of concentric levels in a small park before reaching Highway 29.

Statue in a fountain at the same park; water shut off for the season.

Ornamental cabbage.

Once I'd walked through Salisbury - which took a long time, nearly an hour - I was happy to see this...

I always feel good when I am welcomed into a new town by it's sign. I'm serious about that. To have a town like Salisbury be under my belt and the next one coming on tells me I'm getting ahead...

This place was really cool.

Check out this "laptop." I couldn't imagine fitting that into my backpack. 

At the Transportation Museum.

Now on the way out of Spencer, I was losing daylight quickly...

Goodbye Spencer.

I wasn't precisely sure how far it would be to the Yadkin River. I reached a bridge but couldn't believe I'd traveled three more miles. Still, I couldn't recall any other rivers before Yadkin. This had to be it. I'd passed by many good sleep spots along the way; places that had level pine filled woods, easy to access. But no... I walked past them all.

It was dark and the bridge was shorter than I'd thought. As I stepped off of it, there was only train tracks to the right and a high cliff to the left. But, if there's one thing I've learned, it is that every cliff along roadsides gets lower as you walk along it. Such was the case with this one. Within a 1/4 mile the cliff evened out into a gradual hill. This was my chance to climb up. And, I did. At the top I found a field that appeared to be an unfinished on ramp.

I really wanted to be closer to the trees. I'd learned in dozens of places that coyotes tend to congregate in fields. But truth be told, I hadn't even heard a coyote for more than a month. I set up in the shadow of a misty rising full moon, under a tree. The northeast bound traffic could not see me. The opposite direction could - again - if they even cared. I was feeling less concerned about being seen with each camp spot for the last few weeks...  

You can see (in the dark areas) how there was still some more drying to be done.

It was mild and the air was damp. I stood around ruminating. It was due to rain the next day. And, I dreaded the idea of having to walk another twelve miles to Lexington in the morning if it rained. I was ready to leave immediately in the morning, or stay in the tent until there was a break in the weather. Eventually - though I've had the temptation to stay up more and more lately - I turned in, pulled out the sleeping bag, installed my dirty-clothes pillow in the hood and promptly fell asleep.